Kia ora Ponsonby, Over the last few weeks, some of the Leys Team have been furiously reading the Jann Medlicot Acorn Prize for Fiction Finalists from the 2024 Ockham Book Awards.
The four 2024 finalists are Audition by Pip Adam, Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, A Better Place by Stephen Daisley and Lioness by Emily Perkins. Naturally, all four novels are amazing and quite different in style and storytelling. We do not envy the judges’ task of trying to pick a winner. But for now, the question is, what did we think of the finalists?
Birnam Wood places the global climate emergency’s key concerns and players into a microcosmic South Island setting in this wild ride of a read that opens with a landslide and ends in a rush of sturm und drang. Catton dives deeply into each character’s psyche then zooms out to show us their decisions and interactions playing out in real time on the stage of a sought-after rural property bordering a protected national park. From a technocrat billionaire with devious plans and surveillance drones, to the government-endorsed and green-washing landowners resting on easily won laurels and the desperate debates on what the liberal left should be doing – no one is spared Catton’s sharp pen and eye in this no-holds-barred novel where ideals and morals butt up against personal ambition.
Audition holds you in uncertainty for much of the novel. This uncertainty we come to understand is the status quo for our main characters whose own stories have been forgotten, erased and replaced with a shared memory. The spaceship Audition is travelling through space towards the event horizon. Squashed into it are giants Alba, Stanley and Drew. If they talk, the spaceship keeps travelling and if they are silent, they continue to grow. Audition challenges us to question incarceration and imagine a new kind of justice.
Lioness is a highly enjoyable read. The story centres around Therese, the second wife of a wealthy property developer who is caught up in a scandal and under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. Although Therese is a successful businesswoman in her own right, she has lived much of her life in the shadow of her husband’s name and success. She begins to question her aspirations and privilege while becoming entranced by her downstairs neighbour who offers an intoxicating but flawed escape from her gilded cage, that she has been/may have been complicit in creating.
A Better Place is about the impact of war. Twins Roy and Tony Mitchell went to war together in 1940 but only Roy returned. The inseparable brothers are torn apart when Tony is killed in action on Crete. This leaves Roy to face the rest of the horrors of war without his brother. So far, this book has been a compelling read but, at the time of writing, I still haven’t finished it. So, pop into the library and ask me for a final opinion.
All the Ockham finalists (including the other categories) are available from the library. The fiction finalists are available as books and eBooks. Audition and Birnam Wood are available on Libby with no wait. So, get reading, we would love to know what you thought of this year’s finalists.
The winners of the Ockham Book Awards 2024 will be announced on 15 May as part of the Auckland Writers Festival. Both Pip Adam and Emily Perkins are appearing at the festival. If you haven’t already, now is the time to get your tickets and see as many of the wonderful writers as possible. (Chloë – Manager Community Library - Pouārahi, Pātaka Kōrero ā-Hapori).
Hours: Monday- Friday 9am – 6pm, Saturday 9am – 4pm, Sunday Closed.
Leys Institute Little Library, 14 Jervois Road, Ponsonby, T: 09 377 0209, www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz
#ponsonbynews #iloveponsonby #ponsonby #auckland #aucklandshippestrip #onlyponsonby #ponsonbyroad #Greylynn #freemansbay #westmere #ponsonby #hernebay #stmarysbay #archhill #coxsbay @followers #followers @everyone #everyone #LeysLittleLibrary #books #reading #ockhambookawards #AucklandWritersFestival
Published: April 2024